Dropping the Bass
by Hoperise
Summary: He's Steve Rogers. He's a man out of time. He's got a rathole apartment and occasionally thoughtless neighbours. It's pretty obvious why he can't sleep. Contains Swedish EDM and French cursing.
1. Part I

Dropping the Bass

Setting: Post-Avengers, Pre-Anything else.

Summary: He's Steve Rogers. He's a man out of time. He's got a rathole apartment and occasionally thoughtless neighbours. It's pretty obvious why he can't sleep. Contains Swedish EDM and French cursing.

Disclaimer: Contains brief moment of AU. You'll know it when you see it – if not, don't worry. Also, I'm okay with dubstep. I just think this is a hilariously plausible situation. Consider making an appointment with a neurologist should you think I own any of character you recognize.

* * *

Most nights, Steve didn't mind all-nighters.

There was a certain kind of poetry to returning home exhausted after working through a long night, as the rest of the world awoke from slumber to begin their day. There comes a certain satisfaction in driving against the flow of traffic, knowing that while others spent the night in dreamland, he had already been out and getting things done.

There was something precious about a night where you could see the sun set and rise once more.

But even he started to get bleary-eyed after watching the sun rise and set twice before his head hit the pillow. The Avengers had criss-crossed the East Coast three times in pursuit of the madman responsible for kidnapping three senators and a congressman on the night before a crucial vote. It was a long, gritty chase that he had done an unfortunate amount of the footwork for.

Steve expected a prima donna like Stark to shy away from the less glamorous parts of the pursuit. He had a tremendous amount of respect for Agent Romanov, but she still bore a bit of the princess air about her, and Agent Barton's equipment would have been damaged if he had taken the dive (or so he said). It was difficult enough to get Hulk to follow orders that the rage monster was in favor of, let alone unpleasant ones. Even a hardened Asgardian warrior experienced a bit of hesitation at pursuing an enemy into the sewers, but Steve had plunged in headfirst.

And when one person has to take a dive into a festering pit of excrement, nobody comes out a winner.

Steve spent the flight back to New York in a chemical shower instead of dozing. With the Slug cooling his heels behind bars and the politicians returned safely to DC, Steve sent his team home. Meanwhile, he headed back to SHIELD headquarters and put in another six hours filing preliminary reports and completing the initial debriefing. Fury had finally sent Steve home to rest up before another long night of tactical evaluation.

Desperately trying not to count the hours before he would have to be useful again, Steve passed the malfunctioning elevator in his apartment building and half-stumbled up four flights of stairs.

Gingerly he rotated his left shoulder, testing his mobility after a particularly bad landing. At some point yesterday (Maybe the day before that? What day was today?) Hulk had grabbed Steve by the arm and hurled him across a room like a ragdoll. The move saved him from death by disintegration, but even Steve's incredible healing ability took some time to knit together a decimated rotator cuff.

He withdrew his keys from his pocket and staggered into his apartment. He just wanted this day to be over with, but even he couldn't stand to be around his own stench.

Only halfway through his shower did he realize that the hot water in his building must be out again. But even the frigid stream couldn't dissuade him at this point. He rested his head against the shower wall and let the chilling waves pound the tension from weary muscles.

Steve was so completely done.

Blearily he dried off, catching his reflection in the mirror momentarily and starting at the bloodshot, shadowed gaze of his reflection. It had been a long, long day. Relief to see the end of it all flushed the last traces of adrenaline from him and he was nearly overcome by a wave of weakness. Steve clambered into a set of pajama bottoms, then collapsed on his bed. He didn't even have the strength to pull the covers over himself.

That was when he heard it.

**WOBBA WOBBA WAAAAAAAA WEEEEEB WEEB BOODOO DOOWOO** _dat-dat-dat-dat-dat-dat-dat-dat_ **WAHB WAHB** _baddabadda_ **YEEE YEEE YEEE-**

Muffled music from the bedroom above his. The melody was lost in the floorboards, aside from a faint cacophony of sound, but the bass carried clearly. It started softly and crept up until he could feel the low rumble in his chest.

Steve couldn't help the groan that escaped his lips.

Not again.

He fumbled about with his good arm and clutched a pillow over his head, praying that either his feathery defender would filter out a modicum of sound or he would smother himself.

He couldn't deal with it today.

**WAHBWAHBbaddabaddaYEEEYEEEYEEE**

The door was just as plain and drab as every other one in the hall. A sheet of metal painted white with a peephole and the number 529 engraved on a square of brass. This door, however, was unique in that it was the only one trembling from the soundwaves within.

Here on the fifth floor, he could actually discern some lyrics. But he was certain he must be hearing them incorrectly, because whatever he heard was completely nonsensical.

_She pose for FHM_

_She like my black LV_

_We spinnin' LPR_

_Up on my APC_

Steve knocked, long and slow so that the owner would be sure to hear him. Embarrassed and angry at the same time, he leaned against the doorframe resignedly as he wasn't sure that anything else could hold him up for long.

Finally, the door swung inwards. A gaunt-faced young woman with bleached blonde hair and dark roots stared up at him, wearing a sleeveless top and denim shorts that weren't quite long enough to cover her pockets. "What do you want?" She sneered, voice thick with a Brooklyn accent.

_I'm in my PRPS_

_And my Nike SBs_

_Ravin' with SHM_

_London to NYC_

Off balance, Steve attempted a charming smile, but his face wasn't quite cooperating. He'd settle for something better than a pained grimace. "Afternoon, ma'am. Hope I'm not interrupting – ah, I don't think we've met before. I'm Steve Rogers, the tenant downstairs."

The girl snapped her gum, unimpressed, and repeated herself: "What do you want?"

"Ah – well, I was just wondering if you could possibly turn down the music playing in there. See, I work nights every now and then and it's hard to sleep with –"

The girl turned away and hollered over her shoulder, "Hey, Grandma! Guy downstairs got a problem with your music!"

_You can find me on a table _

_Full of vodka and tequila_

_Surrounded by some bunnies_

_And it ain't even Easter  
_

An older woman's voice, raspy from decades of smoking, resounded from within the apartment, telling him exactly what he could do with himself.

_And that's standard procedure_

_From Miami to Ibiza_

As the door slammed shut in his face, Steve briefly wondered if that were anatomically possible. Certainly the goat would not agree.

**WAHBWAHBbaddabaddaYEEEYEEEYEEE**

Steve spent the better part of an afternoon attempting to hunt down his landlord, but the man could be more elusive than a Hydra agent when he wanted to be. The office was dark and the same 'Back in 30 minutes' sign sat in the window. It hadn't moved from than spot for the better part of a week.

The office mobile line went straight to voicemail, which encouraged him to leave a message before clicking and telling him that the inbox was full. He did some old-fashioned recon and traced the man's home address and phone number down in the yellow pages.

It was only after taking his bike from Bensonhurst to Mount Vernon that Steve discovered the phone book bore an old entry. The landlord had moved and according to the postmaster, he'd left behind no forwarding address.

Staring at the vacant building with disgust, Steve sighed deeply and pinched some of the tension from the bridge of his nose. As he turned about and prepared to head back, he mused that the landlord could probably teach SHIELD a few lessons in covering their tracks.

Back to the drawing board.

* * *

Lyrics Credit: "Miami 2 Ibiza," Swedish House Mafia. Warning for creepiness of the lyrics I didn't put in.

I didn't choose the apartment life. The apartment life chose me. Shout out to my brothas and sistas in the towers.

Please don't tell me off in the reviews about your favorite genre. I can't begin to tell you how much I don't care for that. This is about the perspective of a man from the forties encountering modern music.

Finally, this is a story in three parts. We have not yet seen the further woes of Sleepy Steve. Speaking of which, I'm off to bed. Night, y'all!

**Don't write the story. Live the story.**


	2. Part II

Dropping the Bass

Setting: Post-Avengers, Pre-Anything else.

Summary: He's Steve Rogers. He's a man out of time. He's got a rathole apartment and occasionally thoughtless neighbours. It's pretty obvious why he can't sleep. Contains Swedish EDM and French cursing.  
Disclaimer: Bonjour, mes amis français. Je m'excuse à l'avance si mes mots offenser quelqu'un. Ce sont des sacres québécois parce que je suis canadienne. Amusez-vous! Consider making an appointment with a neurologist should you think I own any of character you recognize.

* * *

Four in the afternoon. He had been trying and failing to sleep for five and a half hours now. Steve knew because he had been checking the clock with increasing exasperation every fifteen minutes. Clearing up after another mission had kept him in the office until hours after the morning shift had clocked in.

This woman, this maddening woman and her granddaughter, kept the most ludicrous schedule imaginable. One day there would be electric dance music until three in the morning, the next day it would be something Tony called 'doobstep' from dawn into dusk. The walls on either side of the apartment were well insulated – it was the flooring that conducted the sound. As a result, Steve was apparently the only one in this torment.

Earplugs were useless against sound waves that literally caused glass to shudder in the windowpanes. Sleeping pills were never an option for the supersoldier. He was well and truly trapped.

On special occasions, the music would start in the middle of the night or during a blissfully-stolen nap. Steve would wake to the walls shaking and fall out of bed in a tangle of sheets, trying to convince himself that his company was not being shelled.

Most nights he lay awake until the early hours or until he simply passed out from exhaustion. Sometimes, he was so tired that he didn't trust himself on his bike. He spent a whole morning attempting to make it in to the city by subway and fell asleep on the way over.

Steve woke up with Natasha next to him, filing her nails by his side in the otherwise-empty car. They had ridden the rails to the end of the line and back several times over. She gave him one of her inscrutable smiles and left without saying a word.

Desperate, he wrote a letter of complaint to the landlord and slipped a copy under the door of apartment 529 (which they had refused to open to him since his first sojourn upstairs).

The only response he received was an envelope under his door containing his letter shredded into confetti and a Polaroid of an extended middle finger.

Beside him on the bedside table, his cellular phone began buzzing. The tiny screen emitted a pale blue light that illuminated the room with a ghastly glow.

Steve made a despairing noise and flipped his phone open. "This had better be important." He growled, placing a hand over his eyes.

"Nice to hear you so chipper, Cap. Did you forget about our little team meeting today? It's no big deal, I'm sure the director of SHIELD has time to wait." came Stark's condescending reply.

The meeting. His eyes snapped open. _"Tabernac!"_

He could practically hear Tony smirking through the phone. "…right. See you in a flash, Chuckles."

There was certainly something to be said for adrenaline. Steve turned a forty-minute drive into about twenty minutes. He left his bike in the basement parking complex of Stark Tower and rode the elevator all the way to the top, fiddling with his keys to keep his hands busy.

"Good afternoon, Captain Rogers," intoned Stark's invisible robot butler.

"Afternoon, JARVIS. How's tricks?" Steve replied, catching his reflection in the door and attempting to flatten his unique blend of bed-head and helmet-head. The shadows beneath his eyes had darkened to the point of bruises. There was no denying it – he looked pretty awful.

"As an Artificial Intelligence program, I suppose I do not possess the capabilities to complain." Jarvis replied from the ceiling.

He smiled weakly. "That's pretty philosophical for a computer, isn't it?"

"I wouldn't know," came Jarvis's reply, but there was a strange tone in his generated voice – like that of a man hiding a grin. "Captain, might I be so bold as to observe that you appear to be experiencing more fatigue than usual?"

Great. Even the robot butler was worried about him.

Steve composed himself, standing so ruler-straight that even Colonel Phillips would approve. "Thanks, but I've got it under control."

"Of course, sir. Allow me to remind you that I am available if there is anything that you need."

"Naturally." Steve managed a thinner smile as the elevator doors slid open.

Apologetic, he took his place at the meeting table. Fury somehow had the ability to channel all the glaring prowess of two eyes into his one good eye, but he made no comment and continued his presentation. Stark was ignoring the whole situation and paging through a Quebecois dictionary with a good deal of enthusiasm.

Clearly, this was getting out of hand.

**WAHBWAHBbaddabaddaYEEEYEEEYEEE**

"Cap? Hey, Captain?"

"Wakey wakey, Spangled Wonder."

"It's not working. Try something different."

"Hmm. Jarvis, can you give me a bit of Reveille?

"Sir, I'm not certain that Captain Rogers would appreciate that…"

"Nonsense, he'll love it. It'll give him the fuzzy-wuzzies for his army days. Play audio clip."

The piercing strains of the bugler were enough to rouse a soldier from a dead sleep, no matter the time period.

Steve started in his chair and tipped over backwards, coming to a crashing halt on the back of his head.

"_Mon tabarnac, j'va te décalisser la yeule, calice__!"_ He spat a mouthful of French curses and stared up in revulsion at the overly-gleeful Tony Stark.

Stark flipped through the dictionary for a translation and chuckled. "Props for creativity, Cap. Who taught you to cuss?"

"Guy I once knew. Jacques Dernier. Stick around a Quebecer long enough, you pick up a few things." He picked himself off the floor and checked the back of his head.

The billionaire chuckled dismissively. "Is that so? You know, Pepper speaks French. Her parents sent her to these fancy schools for culture and etiquette – and my old man left me in a garage and told me to get to it."

Steve narrowed his eyes, not quite knowing what to make of that. The lump on his head grumbled that he wasn't ready to pity the man who'd dumped him unceremoniously on his noggin. "Sorry, Stark. I'm a soldier, not a debutante. I only know the dirty words and drinking songs."

"See? You do have something useful to teach me!" A wicked grin splashed across Stark's face.

Pushing himself to his feet, the super soldier scoffed and examined the room. It was vacant except for himself, Stark, and Barton. Notably, Fury was missing and the sun was a good deal lower in the sky. He must have missed the Fury's presentation – and the beginning, and the middle, for that matter.

While the snarky billionaire appeared unconcerned over Steve's lapse in focus, they were scheduled to review a strategic analysis of the team's tactics conducted over the past couple of months designed to help formulate new strategies. It sounded dull, but the briefings were designed to save lives and reduce collateral damage.

And Steve had made a mockery of his CO by sleeping through it.

He groaned and pressed his palm to his forehead. An arm slide around his shoulders he resisted the reflex to pull-flip-pin-break his way out.

"So I can't help but notice you've been doing a pretty good impression of a raccoon lately. Got any plans to share with the rest of the class?" Stark queried in his mellow drawl.

Perched on the edge of the table with his arms folded over his chest, Barton furrowed his brow. "Captain, if there's something that we should know about…"

A chuckle of absurdity bubbled up from within before Steve could control it. "Fellas, wouldn't I tell you if there were something going on?"

For the first time, Stark didn't appear to be amused. "I don't know. Would you?"

That statement came pretty close to a trigger of his. Steve narrowed his eyes. "Of course I would. I wouldn't allow my team to be jeopardized by something personal."

The dark-haired man slipped his arm from his shoulders and came to stand directly in front of him. "See, I'm not so sure about that. If you're keeping something important from your teammates, I think we're already in jeopardy."

Irritation flared in his gut, overriding the cautious voice in his head. Steve took a step closer. "Are you questioning my judgment, Stark?"

The tension was broken when a pencil eraser went flying through the air and bounced off the super soldier's temple. Barton's voice rang clear from across the room. "Hey! Chill– ah, I mean, simmer down, Cap. We just wanna help."

Taking a step back, Steve let out a breath. "Look, I appreciate the concern, but I got everything under control."

Stark raised an eyebrow, unconvinced. "Good. And I'll be giddy as a schoolgirl when I see you prove it."

This was ridiculous. He rubbed the back of his neck. "Fair warning, Stark: you have no idea how unbelievably stupid this is."

The other hero's eyes sparkled with mischief. "Then you're the perfect guy to handle it."

"Another warning: say that again and I'll knock your block off."

**WAHBWAHBbaddabaddaYEEEYEEEYEEE**

He had tried appealing to their better nature. He had tried appealing to authority. He was sick of these kooky dames and their shenanigans. It was time to step up his game.

And no matter the time period, Steve Rogers was not a guy to chicken out of a challenge.

He tried to remind himself of that as he pushed the double set of glass doors inwards and entered the largest electronics store in Lower Manhattan.

Awash in a sea of light and sound, Steve found himself wandering down aisles stacked floor to ceiling with devices that he had never imagined in his thirty-to-ninety years on this planet. Everywhere he turned, advertisements screamed at him how fantastic their product was and how miserable his life was without it.

A song blared over the speakers that sounded vaguely familiar – had he heard it in the midst of one agonizing night, or did it all just sound the same?

Lost and miserable, the man out of time meandered the store in search of the music section. He found, instead, an ally.

"Need help finding anything, sir?"

Turning around and hoping he didn't look as forlorn as he felt, Steve spotted a friendly-looking young man with messy dark hair and thick-rimmed glasses. He wore suspenders and a red polo bearing the name of the store. His nametag announced him as Riley, but he had scribbled 'Jedi Master' in the blank space above with a permanent marker.

Steve wondered what a Jedi was. Probably not a formal title, but it probably meant some kind of computer whiz. Did that make Stark a Jedi, too?

"Uh, yeah. I'm actually here looking for a present for my… nieces." He rehearsed his cover story, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his bomber jacket. "They're really into music, so I was thinking about some kind of fancy headphones?"

Jedi Master Riley nodded appreciatively. "Good choice! You know you're in the router section, though, right?"

Staring helplessly at the boxes, Steve shrugged. "I, uh, guess you could say I haven't done this in a while."

Fortunately, Riley laughed instead of picking his words apart. "C'mon. Let me show you around. Maybe I can suggest a couple models they might be interested in. Who are your nieces into?"

Blue eyes widening as he tagged after the fast-moving youth, the captain spluttered and blushed. "What?"

Riley turned around, hooking his thumbs in his suspenders as he continued his march, backwards, to the audio section. "Who are they into? One Direction? T-Swif? The Biebster himself?"

It took him a moment to get it, but then it clicked. Music. The kid was talking about musical artists, not something crass. Steve nodded sagely and said as casually as he could, "Uh, I'm not sure. I hear they're into the doobsteps."

That stopped him in his tracks. Riley raised a dark eyebrow. "The what now?"

Puzzled, Steve repeated himself. "Doobsteps. Surely you've heard of it. Kids these days love their doobsteps."

Riley made a curious expression that looked as though he were suppressing a smile. "Do you happen to mean 'dubstep?'"

"Maybe." He sighed and raised his hands in helplessness. "Look, I'm a Glenn Miller kinda guy. The newest stuff I was ever into was Sinatra. My nieces drive us bonkers with their music at crazy hours. I want 'em to be happy, but I don't want to lose my mind, either. I figure if I get 'em something with all the bells and whistles, they might actually want to use them."

"Right. And sanity will be restored." The youngster replied, his expression softening. "I think I know exactly what you're looking for."

They spent about forty-five minutes discussing different options. Riley was very patient. He warned Steve that there were a lot of bells and whistles to be had and spent time talking to him to figure out the best option for his circumstance.

At last, Steve walked out of the store with a bag containing two exquisitely wrapped gift boxes and an album of Frank Sinatra's Greatest Hits. He'd dropped over $500 cash plus tax and gratuities for the headphones, but he told himself that it was a worthy investment towards his sanity.

Carrot acquired.

A semi-quick stop at the New York Public Library and he had the stick.

Time to play.

* * *

Musical inspiration for the shop: "Gold Dust," Flux Pavilion

Minor autobiographical note. I have a several family members in the Canadian military. When every one of them came back from basic training, they'd learned a whole bunch of Quebecois curses. You gotta figure that the military guy picked up some interesting words from his multicultural Commandoes.

Also, I'm a huge proponent of doing research on the places that you write about. My current job has my do a ton of research on venues and whatnot for NYC, so I'm hypersensitive when I see a show or read a fic and a character mentions they have a reservation at 'Mario's,' or some other cliché kind of name. Find a real place, figure out what makes it great, and write about that restaurant. At least make it sound like a place you'd like to go.

For reference: popular opinion based off the Avenger's movie is that Stark Tower is located in the same space where the Metlife Building is in Midtown, and I would put Steve's apartment somewhere in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Now picture the happy times of commuting from one to another.

Thanks for stopping by and happy researching!

**Don't write the story. Live the story.**


	3. Part III

Dropping the Bass

Setting: Post-Avengers, Pre-Anything else.

Summary: He's Steve Rogers. He's a man out of time. He's got a rathole apartment and occasionally thoughtless neighbours. It's pretty obvious why he can't sleep. Contains Swedish EDM and French cursing.  
Disclaimer: Consider making an appointment with a neurologist should you think I own any character you recognize.

* * *

Flattening his back against the wall, Steve quieted his breathing and lay in wait.

Target was on the approach.

The stakeout had been long and difficult, but this mission was far too critical to have a civilian blunder in and muck it all up.

He checked his watch and counted down the seconds.

Three, two, one.

The service elevator emitted a tiny chime as the doors slid open precisely on time.

Target approaching the package.

His heart pounded and he strained his serum-enhanced senses to catch every detail of the conversation in progress.

"Grandma! Somebody left you a present!"

"What's in it? Open it up!"

"Dunno. Hey, there's one for me, too! Check out the wrap-job. So legit!"

Silence broken only by the sound of ripping paper.

"Whoa! Check out these sick headphones!"

"Who's it from? Is there a note or anything?"

"Um, yeah. There's a card. I think it's… Precious Moments? Who sells these things?"

"Shut up. There's something inside."

More silence as they read his little note and the attached legal document. Steve felt his lips curling in victory despite the jab at what he'd considered a very handsome greeting card.

"Dear ladies of 529, hope this finds you well, blah blah blah, no hard feelings, blah blah blah. Thought I'd send such sensitive, artistic women a token by which you can better enjoy your music. Enclosed is a reminder the tenant agreement we all signed with the building as a condition of residence. Hope you put this to good use so we can enjoy your presence for many years of happiness. Lots of love, Steve?"

Eight hours of sleep, here he came. Visions of sugarplums were already a'dancing in his head.

That is, until the women cracked up laughing.

"Ain't no way that Maurice is throwin' us out. Not while I've got those pictures of him and his not-wife. You know I ain't never signed this thing. Maurice keeps me here to make sure I'm close by. Fancy headphones, though."

With that, their cackling carried into the apartment until Steve heard the door shut with a click.

Barely audible over the introductory metallic whine of the doobsteps was the sound of someone's head thumping against the wall.

"_Tabernac!"_

**WAHBWAHBbaddabaddaYEEEYEEEYEEE**

Stark warned him.

Stark warned him that he was playing with fire.

Somehow, the billionaire knew that the accumulated sleep debt would catch up with Steve.

Stark accused him of endangering the team with his recklessness.

But as he finished calling out orders to their eyes in the sky and finally noticed the semi careening into his blind spot, Steve couldn't help feeling smug that he'd proved Stark wrong.

He hadn't endangered the team whatsoever.

Only himself.

Then, there was darkness.

**CRASHTINKLEbaddabaddaBEEPBEEPBEEEEEEE-**

Steve opened his eyes to a shadowy room. The shades were drawn and a machine was chirping happily from the corner, but it was otherwise quiet.

He had no idea where he was. On the other hand, he felt more relaxed than he had been in months.

Perhaps here, in this cozy sanctuary, he could finally drift away.

That was about the time that a thick packet of paper collided with his head.

"Ah! _Tabernac!_ What in the name of-"

"You, sir, are a piece of work." Stark declared, flipping the lights on.

The added stimulus to his already-overloaded head was too much for the battered soldier. The impact felt like it split his skull in two – which was ridiculous, unless the packet aggravated a previous condition. Steve pondered this distantly as his brain contemplated alternative states of matter and he drove the palms of his hands into his eye sockets to keep his gray matter from leaking out.

When he returned to coherence, it was to a highly aggravated Ms. Pepper reading Stark the riot act over hitting a man with a skull fracture.

Natasha was in the corner, sitting crossways on Barton's lap and filing her nails again. She caught Steve's gaze and sent him a mysterious smile, then returned to enjoying the display.

Barton apparently hadn't made up his mind about the seating arrangement, but wasn't complaining.

Thor took up the entire other corner. He looked so ordinary when he wasn't wearing his epic cape. As a general rule, Steve was pretty anti-cape, but Thor pulled it off well. Maybe it had to do with flying. If you saw a guy flying with a cape, you called him a hero. If you saw a guy running around with a cape, you locked him up.

He blinked. He was drifting.

The Asgardian's expression lit up. "Friend Rogers! You've returned!" He spoke in an overdramaticized whisper that still sounded like a shout. Someone had evidently warned him about the noise.

"I go somewhere?" Steve rasped in confusion, his throat suddenly full of gravel.

"Not yet," came a reply from his side. He rolled his head over and saw Bruce adjusting an IV that – whoa, that was attached to him! Surprise! Maybe that was why he felt so floaty.

The Doctor finished his work and turned to face him soberly. "Do you remember what happened?"

Steve shut his eyes to concentrate. "There was an incident," he said, clearing his throat briefly, "with a semi."

Scoffing fluttered about the room like butterflies. Harder to catch, though.

Bruce mercifully helped him with a drink of water while he explained, "That little 'incident' left you with a pretty significant skull fracture, a couple of broken ribs, internal bleeding, and a whole lot of other fun things. But because you're you, you'll probably be up and kicking in about a week. I'd estimate full recovery will take maybe a month."

"Oh. S'good." Steve replied intelligently, leaning back into the pillow. "How long…?"

"Three days, but that's partially from exhaustion. Speaking of which, while you were recovering, we did some investigating and _Tony_ thinks he's solved your little problem." Pepper replied, giving her beau a pat on the shoulder to prompt him from his sulking.

"I gotta problem that isn't Tony?" He slurred with a dazed expression on his face, but his team could sense he was less confused than he appeared to be.

"The Cap telling jokes. It's a good thing we're in a hospital, 'cause I'm gonna have a heart attack." Stark replied, deadpan. A swift jab to Tony's ribs was forthcoming. But the glint in his eyes told Steve the other man hadn't missed the use of his first name.

"It wasn't that hard to figure out, actually. Went by your apartment a few times, heard the noise. Found a ripped up letter than was incredibly annoying to put back together. Saw a receipt from the electronics store, but no product. The sales guy gave us the rest." Natasha explained, nonchalant. He could tell she was pleased with something, but he couldn't be sure whether it was from the detective work, the nail job, or his awakening.

Somehow, Steve had the good graces to blush. "Told you it was stupid." He mumbled, looking at the ceiling.

The God of Thunder had been pensive. "I think not, my Captain. I have much to learn about the human emotion called friendship, but where I come, friends expect to be called on both for the fiercest of battles as well as the most insignificant troublings. The only foolishness lies in the warrior who does not call for aid when it becomes necessary." Thor's dazzling smile lit up the room. "You dove into a pit of excrement on our behalf. Shall we do no less for you?"

It must be a side effect of the drugs that made his throat feel so tight. His eyes shone as he managed, "Well, thanks."

Pepper's indignant elbow could be ignored no longer. Stark cleared his throat loudly, shooting her a scathing look before glancing back to Steve. "So, in light of the circumstances, there's a room in the tower with your name on it. Not literally, because that would be, uh, weird. But if you want it, it's yours."

The sudden silence of the captain must have made him uncomfortable, as he continued hastily. "You know, I've been doing some remodeling, and I figured this would save time. Turn a forty-minute commute into about four seconds."

He must be more out of it then he thought he was. Was Tony really suggesting… "Are you asking me to move in?"

"Not if you don't want to. Some people like their independence and appreciate their idiotic neighbor's midnight serenades…"

Steve figured he was about to launch into a tirade, so he had better interrupt quickly. "That'd be good. But what's Fury going to say?"

His team shared a communal glance that was more troubling for him than it was for them.

"Ah, well, when he heard the story, Fury came out pretty strongly in favor of the move. Wrote you a little love note explaining it all." Stark replied, waving the thick envelope that he'd used as a projectile not long ago. "Since Thor brought up the sewer thing, consider yourself in a lot deeper and nastier crap than that."

A chuckle rippled through the room. Despite the impending Wrath of Fury, Steve couldn't help but smile.

Maybe he couldn't handle all the obstacles the twenty-first century presented him with. Maybe he couldn't do it on his own. But like Thor said, he didn't have to go it alone.

And if they couldn't find a solution to the problems, at least they could give him an out.

It wasn't his team that sat assembled by his bedside. It was his friends. They clashed in discord every now and then, but harmony would come – it was already on its way.

There was only one issue left unaddressed. One last question that demanded answers.

"Hey Stark. Gotta question for ya."

"What's that, Cap?"

"Are you a Jedi Master?"

"...a-am I what now?"

* * *

I have a neighbor like this, though they generally limit their pumping bass to daytime hours. On a hilariously ironic note, as I was writing the final scene there was EDM blaring through my ceiling.

Favorite parts of this chapter: the Precious Moments card.

_Lots of love, Steve._

Pahaha. The end!

**Don't write the story. Live the story.**


End file.
